On Christmas Eve
by LoyaulteMeLie
Summary: A young Malcolm Reed's Christmas takes an unexpected turn.
1. Chapter 1

**Star Trek and all its intellectual property is owned by Paramount/CBS. No infringement intended, no profit made.**

 **This story has not been been beta-read, so any mistakes in it are mine.**

 **This is a follow-up of sorts to 'As Dreams Are Born'. It's dedicated to all the great friends I've made through the Enterprise fandom.  
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 _"Yesss!"_

Edward St Clair put down his newspaper and gazed in mild wonder at his wife as she performed an impromptu jig around the lounge.

He'd heard her mobile phone go off, and it didn't take a genius to deduce who the call was from; only one member of the family qualified for the ringtone 'Rule Britannia'.

Fortunately – he and Sherrie were united on this point, as indeed they were on most points – calls from her brother Stuart were few and far between. Most of those that did occur left her in a state of at least minor irritation.

This one, at least, had been brief and to the point. Edward was not sufficiently interested in the caller to pay all that much attention, apart from wondering idly how far up the 'exasperationometer' his wife would be by the time she ended the call, but he'd gleaned the fact that his brother-in-law was peeved about something. Not in itself an unusual occurrence, and not one that he himself intended to lose any sleep over, any more than Sherrie usually did.

"Well, are you going to tell me what's up at the Reeds', or not?" he called as his wife – now waltzing – disappeared into the kitchen.

She put her head around the door, beaming. "Grumpy-arse has received a summons from On High to sort out some business at the Naval Station in Malaysia."

He frowned. "And that makes you happy, why?" Admittedly it would spare them the brief formal visit on Boxing Day afternoon that Stuart seemed to feel it mandatory that the family should make, but he'd never realised that Sherrie viewed that with more than resignation.

"Because apparently the Powers That Be think it's not appropriate to bring his kids with him. Mary, yes – but not Malcolm or Maddie. So he's asking if we can look after them over Christmas."

Light dawned, though not without a lingering puzzlement; he'd heard her response. "So why didn't you say yes?"

"What, and make his life easy? I'm going to make him sweat for an hour or so. I said I'd think about it and let him know."

=/\=

His heavy face wearing its customary scowl, Stuart Reed paused in the doorway and surveyed his children. "I expect to hear good reports of both of you when your mother and I come back," he said flatly. "You're to uphold the good name of the Reeds at all times, do you hear?"

"Yes, sir." "Yes, Father." The two voices answered almost simultaneously, but Sherrie in the background frowned slightly at the different words they used.

"Go upstairs and change into your indoor clothes. You'll be in the same rooms you had last time," she told the children.

"Yes, Aunt Sherrie." Obediently they removed their shoes in the hall, hung up coats and hats, and trooped upstairs – Edward had already taken up their suitcases when Stuart brought them in from the flitter.

While they did so, she took the opportunity to follow her brother back out to his vehicle. He looked as though he had dismissed his children's existence so completely from his mind that he was actually startled when she asked, her voice low and accusing, whether he'd ever thought of actually kissing them goodbye. "It's bloody _Christmas Eve_ , for God's sake," she ended on a hiss.

"Don't be ridiculous," he growled, getting into the driver's seat. "And I've already told you, Sherrie, I don't want you making them soft while they're here. I've brought those kids up with decent discipline. The boy won't damn well make his way in the Navy by kissing people."

"Yes, and a Merry Christmas to you too, you pompous old git," she said as her brother shut the vehicle door and accelerated away down the front drive. She glanced up at the front of the house. Maddie's face was pressed to the window of her room as she watched her father drive away; her expression was woebegone, but she was at the age when she derived enormous enjoyment from play-acting. Sherrie was prepared to bet that the first proffer of distraction would banish the expression as though it had been wiped away with a cloth.

The window of the room next door to Maddie's had no occupant, or so first glance suggested. However, as she watched, she saw the slightest twitch as the left-hand curtain settled back into place. Malcolm too had watched his father drive away, but from a place of concealment.

Cursing inside, Sherrie walked back into the house. To go upstairs at once would be far too obvious, so she busied herself with a few small tasks around the lounge and made herself a cup of tea. Only after she had drunk it and made a pretence of reading an article in a magazine did she walk slowly upstairs.

Maddie had unpacked her things and was investigating the contents of the wardrobe, which held an assortment of children's costumes her aunt had purchased from a fancy-dress costume company's closing down sale earlier in the summer. The child's eyes were as round as saucers as she fingered taffeta, lace and velvet, doubtless seeing only the glitter and not the small signs of wear and tear.

"Oh, you've spoiled my surprise," said Sherrie, smiling, shaking her head as Maddie spun around with a gasp of apprehension for her unauthorised trespass in the wardrobe. "I bought them so that we could play games over the holiday. I thought you and Malcolm might like to dress up and pretend."

"I don't think Malcolm likes dresses," his sister said anxiously.

"I don't think so either," Sherrie responded, laughing. "But do you think he might like to be a Pirate King?"

"Oooh, yes!" Delight spread over the little face, banishing the anxiety. "And will he have a sword? He likes swords!"

"Well, maybe not a _real_ sword," temporised her aunt. "But there is a pretend one."

"A real pretend sword! He would _love_ that!" She flew across the room and, throwing her arms around her aunt, buried her head in Sherrie's midriff – almost eliciting an involuntary grunt, for she was a solid child. "Thank you, Aunt Sherrie! Thank you!"

"You're welcome, sweet. Now go downstairs, and you'll find your lunch on the table. Eat it like a good little girl, while I have a word with your brother."

"There's some lunch for Malcolm too?" Maddie asked doubtfully. "He has been very good, I promise."

Mentally heaping more curses on her brother's oblivious head, Sherrie nodded. "I'm sure he has, Maddie. You'll find his down there as well. I'll bring him down in a minute."

As soon as her niece's footsteps had pattered down the stairs, across the hallway and into the kitchen, she knocked on the door of the adjoining room.

"Yes?" asked a voice from within, carefully neutral.

"May I come in?"

With the politeness of all his eight years, the boy came to the door and opened it. As he raised his face to hers, she noted with a further inward sinking of the heart that it was shuttered, his thoughts masked from view with a thoroughness no eight-year-old should have had to master.

Her original intention had been to bring up the subject of the fancy dress, but instinct told her that although he would respond appropriately, it would be nothing but protective camouflage.

Instead, she walked into the room. His suitcase was still sitting where Edward had placed it, unopened. Whereas Maddie had lost no time in distributing her small belongings around the room, making it hers, her brother had made no mark on his whatsoever. The indentation in the counterpane on the bed showed where he had simply sat, motionless, waiting to watch his father leave.

Sherrie sat down next to the place and waited, not speaking; and after a moment Malcolm came over and sat next to her. His hands were placed carefully between his knees, so that he would not even seem to be trespassing on her space.

She wanted to put her arm around the thin shoulders, but that would have been altogether the wrong thing to do just then. Instead she spoke, choosing her words with extreme care.

"Malcolm, I'm sure your father didn't want to have to leave you and Maddie here for Christmas."

"I don't think it mattered to him," came the reply. His tone was fighting for indifference, but he was only eight. "And Mother has to do what he says. Even if … even if she doesn't like it."

"Sometimes that's what all grown-ups have to do," she said gently. "But the important thing is that it's OK for anyone to say they're hurt about it. Admitting being hurt doesn't mean a person's weak."

Silence, in response to that. His fingers clasped together, and the dark head was lowered, studying them. "I wish they hadn't had to go," he admitted at last. "It – it upsets Maddie."

"I'm sure it does." Tactfully she refrained from mentioning that his sister was exhibiting every sign of delight at being reprieved from a typical Reed Christmas. "But that just means that Maddie loves her parents very much, and that Maddie is a very loving and wonderful child. Because it takes someone very special to keep loving when … when things aren't as easy as they should be."

After a long pause, Malcolm spoke to his now still fingers. "Do you ever wish you'd had children, Aunt Sherrie?"

"I would have liked children very much," she said quietly. "But it never happened. And I envy Stuart and Mary. I think they have two amazing children."

He looked up at that, blinking rather rapidly. "Father doesn't." A faint blush coloured the skin over his cheekbones, and he looked down again, clearly ashamed of his moment of weakness and disloyalty.

"He will one day, Malcolm. I promise you, he will."

He was silent for a long moment before raising his eyes again to search her face. She held his gaze, thinking with angry sorrow that it was growing more opaque every time they met. Then, very shyly, and very much to her surprise, he asked, "Aunt, may I have a hug?"

"Now, that is the one thing you never have to ask in this house. Whenever you need a hug, just hold your arms out and take one."

The awkwardness with which he came into her embrace tore at her. _Mary, what the hell have you been thinking of?_ It took a little adjustment before they were both comfortable, but presently his head was pillowed against her cushiony bosom.

"I can hear your heartbeat," he murmured wonderingly after a minute.

"I hope so, or I'm dead," she responded, laughing; but she quickly sobered. "Malcolm, I know it's been upsetting for Maddie that the two of you can't be with your parents this Christmas. But I want the two of you to help Eddie and me have a special Christmas instead. Would you like to do that?"

He lifted his head at that. Once again she encountered a doubtful, searching grey stare, but this time there was a hint of hope in it. "Help _you_ have a special Christmas, Aunt?"

"Absolutely.

"I don't know if you've noticed, Malcolm, but the Christmas tree in the lounge hasn't been decorated. We've been too busy up till now to get around to it, and your uncle was going to do it this morning, but he needed to do a little tidying up around the garden and it's taken longer than he expected. I was wondering if…"

There was no doubt about it: that was _awe_ , with delight hesitating on its heels, shy of its welcome. "But … but we … what if we break anything?"

"Oh, all the baubles are very strong," said Sherrie sunnily, and went on to traduce her husband without a qualm. "I'd never buy anything breakable with Edward in charge of the decorating. Bless him, he's the clumsiest soul I know."

The boy surged to his feet, all eagerness. "May we start straight away? I promise, we'll be very careful! And I'll make absolutely sure Maddie won't make any mess at all!"

She nodded. "It may not be possible not to make any mess," she said fairly, smiling. "But I know you'll clean it up afterwards if you do.

"Maddie's downstairs eating lunch in the kitchen, and after you've had yours too, both of you can make a start on the tree. The decorations are in a box beside it."

"And – and the lights?"

"They're in the box as well. I'd like it if you'd ask your uncle to just keep an eye on you when you're checking them before you put them on the tree, and be very careful when you stand on the steps, but other than that I trust you to do a wonderful job with our Christmas tree this year. And I'll be busy in the kitchen while you're working, waiting to be called in when it's ready, to see what an excellent job you've made of it."

"I'll make it absolutely _splendid_ , Aunt Sherrie!" The second, fervent hug was a little less awkward than the first, but he was, of course, far too excited to linger in it. He detached himself after only a few seconds, his eyes shining at the vista that had opened up before him.

The wild joy with which he bounded out of the door and hurtled down the stairs brought tears pricking to her eyes. For by no means the first time, and certainly not for the last, she wished most heartily for the means and the opportunity to hit her brother over the head with a plank.

She followed Malcolm downstairs rather more sedately. It was no surprise that rather than go straight to the kitchen he was in the lounge, gazing at the beckoning boxes of baubles and tinsel beside the waiting tree (all hastily purchased for the occasion, since the St Clairs did not usually have a Christmas tree at all) – and also, with amazement, at the four wrapped parcels underneath it. One of these bore the legend 'FOR MALCOLM' and another 'FOR MADDIE'.

He looked up as she came through the door. "I don't … Father says…" His voice was husky.

She raised a single finger, silencing him. "Are you in your father's house, or in mine?"

"Yours, Aunt."

"Then the rule in _this_ house is that _everyone_ receives a gift, or _nobody_ does. And since I shall be very cross if I get no Christmas present, then that means you and Maddie have to have one too. And there is no argument."

"Yes, Aunt." He peered at the parcel containing his gift as though it were an item of unexploded ordnance.

"And in the meantime, young man, you have lunch to eat and a tree to decorate, with your sister's help. So off you go, and I want every bite eaten before you so much as make a move back in here."

"Yes, Aunt," he said again, but this time he smiled – a smile that lit his narrow pale face with such warmth and charm that she glimpsed the friend that he would one day be to the select and fortunate few whom he would admit into his inner circle.

Then he walked sedately into the kitchen, sat down beside his sister at the table there and began eating lunch.

Beneath the tree, his first ever Christmas present, a gaily-wrapped parcel containing a book entitled _British Naval Battles_ , sat waiting for the morrow.

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 **All reviews received with sincere gratitude!**


	2. Chapter 2

_***Many years later***_

Sherrie St Clair sat alone in the chair in the front window.

Behind her the empty house was very quiet, though from the media centre in the corner floated the familiar, ageless notes of _Adeste Fideles._ Recorded in a cathedral somewhere, the echoing quality of the pure, soaring voices brought back the carol services in St Matthew's Church – closed several years ago when the cost of the upkeep of its ancient fabric had been deemed too great to be justified. There was a multi-denominational service in a newer church, not much further distant, but she had never attended it; she was more content to be left with her memories.

She was too old for change.

Outside, the garden was dark, stripped, deserted. Hardly any traffic ever went by in the lane, and the world beyond the neatly trimmed hedges was fading fast into the midwinter twilight that seemed to come so early that one had barely registered midday before the light began leaching from the sky.

Since Edward's death seven years ago she had kept herself busy; she refused to be one of those widows who sank into gloom, using their bereavement as an excuse for self-pity. She was active in her community; she had a wide circle of friends; she played golf in the summer, and went hiking all year round. On most weekends she could be seen hacking around the roads on one of the local stable's livery horses.

That morning, however – for the first time in many years – she had rung the stables and said she would not ride. It wasn't the first time she would have ridden out alone on this particular day; for the previous two years she had gone out alone, while beside her the frost-blanched grass had remained untrodden by a second set of hoofs. There had occasionally been other years, too, when the exigencies of her nephew's career had prevented him from coming home to the land of his birth for the festive season. But those had been different. Those had been the innocent years. This was Monday the twenty-fourth of December in God's year 2153. Christmas Eve.

She looked up towards the sky. The clouds had hung low all day, full of a snow that refused to fall, but now as night closed in one or two powdery flakes had begun to idly sift down. Somewhere out there, far beyond those lowering clouds, her beloved nephew was among those who had set out to save Earth.

The newscasts speculated endlessly on the doings of the starship in which he served. His masters were sparing of details, so every titbit they released was seized on and discussed at length. She tried not to watch, but the dread clung to her and would not be calmed, and that was why she had rung the stable this morning. On each of the two previous years his presence beside her had been so palpable that more than once she had almost turned to him with some item of conversation, and the realisation of her own foolishness had set her laughing; he was following his dream, out among the stars.

There had been danger in that, of course; she was no ninny, refusing to see what was obviously there. But now the whole world was waiting, their poor wounded world, and somewhere out there was a threat that could bring everything to an end. For all that she despised her own superstitious dread, she had not been able to shake the fear that the presence beside her today might be more than the product of the memory of so many happy Christmas Eve rides; that the slim upright figure on the shadowy horse might be the farewell message from a man whose body was now floating lifeless and frozen in space, millions of miles from his own star.

"Stupid old woman," she muttered, twitching irritably at the crocheted blanket she was working on. Of course nothing had happened to the ship. Her fool brother would have let her know – well, Mary would have, anyway. It was unlikely the news of an isolated death would have been generally circulated (morale was being kept up by a steady stream of optimistic reports of the starship's progress), but surely the next-of-kin would have been privately informed?

The declining daylight activated the sensors governing the house's lighting. The extra lamps behind her came on gently, banishing the dusk from the lounge. The Christmas tree lights were already twinkling; ever since that first occasion when the children had been left with her it had been a feature of the season, and now even when they were living their own lives it was a link to the happy times of the past. It was time to shut the curtains and turn to the armchair by the fire, and her book waiting there. Already the scent was stealing from the pine branches, and the now rather faded baubles that had given the children so much joy were lent magic again by the subtle lamplight.

Nevertheless, as she made to rise, she saw a van pull up beyond the garden gate. It was too late for any standard deliveries, so she watched in puzzlement as a young man she did not know walked up the front path, a small white rectangle in his hand.

Still, it was something that would break the anxious tenor of her thoughts, so she went to the front door. Even if no signature would be required for whatever this was, she could open it at once.

A signature was required. She provided one, a little shakily, while the pleasant young delivery-man made conversation about the likelihood of a white Christmas and joked that it wasn't this cold at home in Jamaica.

As the van pulled away and disappeared into the falling evening, she moved to her armchair. There was a letter knife there, on the little side table where she always opened her mail; it had _San Francisco_ engraved on the handle.

The packet – it was too bulky to be an ordinary letter – had a printed address label and a second label stating _For Delivery Monday 24 December._ It had a Starfleet postmark, and as she recognised it her heart rushed into her mouth.

She sat down a little heavily in the armchair, and reached for the knife. A quick cut opened the envelope, and from the open end a data-chip dropped out.

Her fingers were ridiculously unsteady as she picked it up from the table and inserted it into the slot on the media centre.

There was a small computer screen on the unit for vid-mail. As soon as the internal workings recognised the chip's communication protocol, the familiar Starfleet chevron appeared. And after a moment, the face of her nephew followed it.

He looked so much older, and so burdened. Her heart contracted as she took in his pallor, worse than it had ever been. The lines between his brows and around his mouth looked as though they had been incised with a knife.

But he could still smile. Somehow the face contrived to produce one that had in it the same warmth from all those Christmases ago as he leaned forward a little to ensure his voice would be picked up properly by the microphone.

 _"I won't be able to make it this year either, Aunt,"_ he said. _"But I'm going to arrange for this to be delivered to you on our day, so that at least you won't be entirely deprived of my sparkling company._

 _"I'm recording this in the assumption that we won't be home for Christmas. Also that no news of our untimely demise has come in between times. So as you watch this, you'll be at home, alone, waiting for Christmas._

 _"There's not a lot I can do about that, Aunt. Except tell you that if fate allows, I'll be thinking of you, when today comes, wherever I am. And about Uncle Edward, of course. And about all the Christmases Maddie and I spent at your house._

 _"You told me once that I was very special. If there's anything special about me, Aunt, I owe it to you. I wish so much that I could be with you today. I believe you're expecting snow. The lanes would have been so beautiful, with the trees all covered in it. I'll just have to imagine the two of us riding side by side, enjoying it._

 _"Unfortunately, I don't have nearly enough time to say all that I ought to say. Except to thank you, and to wish you Merry Christmas, and to tell you I hope that next year all this will be over and I'll be able to fly home and visit._

 _"Until then, dear Aunt, I will be thinking of you._

 _"God bless."_

The grey eyes softened and squeezed almost shut as he pantomimed blowing a kiss.

The Starfleet chevron winked onto the screen again. The recording was over.

She switched off the unit, stood up and moved to the window. Outside the snow was falling more swiftly, the flakes ghostly in the lamplight.

 _If there's anything special about me, I owe it to you._

"Oh, Malcolm, you foolish, foolish boy," she whispered. "You're the special one of this family. And maybe when all this is over, even that stupid brother of mine will finally realise that."

The weather forecast said the snow was unlikely to be severe. On Boxing Day morning she would ring the stables and ask if there was a horse available. If there was, she would go for her usual ride, admiring the beauty of the snow-dusted landscape, and a shadowy second horse would pace alongside with a slender, upright figure in the saddle: not so much a memory, and certainly not a ghost, but a prophecy.

 _Enterprise_ would come home.

Victorious.

 **The End.**

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